Australia’s tourism is in “lockdown” mode : CLOSED!
I shall return for some months to Switzerland...
After dropping my Land Roamer at Jakarta harbour on 20 February 2020, I flew to New Zealand to visit parts of the 2 islands with a small rented campervan. I kept monitoring the Corona situation and when I read that many borders were closing, I dashed to Auckland, returned early my rented camper, bought a ticket and flew to Melbourne on 19 March, 24 hours later Australia’s borders were closed to all foreigners!
I had to do a mandatory 14 days of “self-isolation”, I stayed in an Airbnb room during that period.
When my quarantine was over, via Couchsurfing, I was able to stay in a nice house.
The ship carrying my Land Roamer arrived in Melbourne on 13 April, my truck (and it’s contents) passed successfully the rigorous “bio-security” inspection and was delivered to me on 22 April.
Because winter was coming to Southern Australia and because tourism was completely banned for many months to come, there was absolutely no reason for me to stay any longer in Australia. Much wiser to fly home to Switzerland and enjoy summer in Europe with family and friends. I would like to return to Melbourne mid-September and start my discovery of Australia later this year.
I rented a parking space in a big shed for long term storage (with boats and campers), drove my Roamer there on the 23rd and flew out of Melbourne to Zurich on the 24 April. From Doha, there were no more direct flights to Geneva, so I flew to Zurich and took the train to Nyon and back home.
Due to the worldwide Corona pandemic, air traffic almost came to a standstill.
The trip back home was REAL strange, in DESERTED airports and aircrafts…
A BIG thank you to Qatar Airways, which was one of the very few airlines
still flying to and from Australia under the motto: We will get you home!
Doha hub: ONLY 13 flights for the WHOLE day!
